Nordea

Nordea, like most of the incumbent major banks including Swedbank, Handelsbanken and SEB, is a great business - but it's also stagnated in terms of growth.

in terms of Book value, earnings, and other relevant multiples, Nordea shows all the signs of being slightly above its standard valuation trend, calling for me to give it a "HOLD". 10 out of 15 analysts are currently viewing the company as a "BUY" or an "Outperform", in part certainly for its role as an income generator, in part because of comparative exuberance. It's not like Handelsbanken, where the bank may crawl around that 100-110 level for some time - which is why my covered calls for Handelsbanken are close to at 130 strike. This means that it can become clearer when the market is overreacting in any one specific direction, and that's what I take advantage of when it comes to any of these banks. The next few years are unlikely to be all that great, but Nordea has other income drivers in the meantime, and as you can see, unemployment hasn't really reached or climbed to alarming levels here. Impaired loans that the company has is low - but not market-leading. At the same time, NII-related headwinds are back - meaning wholesale funding costs are up, and costs to hedge deposits are up as well. Nordea is one of the largest banks in all of Scandinavia. Similarly, I would buy Nordea to "the gills" at below 40-60 SEK and would be happy to hold indefinitely or until the company climbed back up again. [OTCPK:DNBHF](https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/DNBHF)), Swedbank ( [OTCPK:SWDBF](https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SWDBF)), Nordea, SEB, Handelsbanken ( [OTCPK:SVNLF](https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/SVNLF)), and Danske Bank ( [OTCPK:DNKEY](https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/DNKEY)). Instead, Nordea is owned by SEB Funds (11.2% of capital and votes), followed by BlackRock ( [BLK](https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/BLK)), Cevian Capital, Nordea Funds, The Central Bank of Norway, Vanguard Funds, and a whole other host of funds owning between 1-5% of the bank's shares and voting rights. Unfortunately, the bank known as Nordea is a market underperformer.